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Fuckin' around with lineless painting a bit. Just kinda trying to get a feel for digital shading in general. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but I figure if I watch enough tutorials and draw enough random shit I'll settle into a comfortable process sooner or later.
So, have some gay boy.
So, have some gay boy.
Category Artwork (Digital) / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 661 x 975px
File Size 509.1 kB
Hopefully this doesn't come off as patronising, but I genuinely mean this. Ruaidri could literally be a 'Michelangelo' of the furry-art community. The Renaissance man did sculpture, painting and architecture and excelled... Ruaidri works in digital art, on paper art, and animation... and he's literally one of the greats... wouldn't be surprised if he starts dabbling in fur-suit making! <3
I'm not sure I'd quite put myself in the level of ole' Micheal, but I do appreciate the compliment! :P
I have honestly kind of considered experimenting with fursuit making. Hot take, but... I don't actually like fursuits very much. It's not my thing. But, as an artist I can't help but have opinions on how most of them are done, and wonder if I could do it in a way that would be more to my tastes. :P
I have honestly kind of considered experimenting with fursuit making. Hot take, but... I don't actually like fursuits very much. It's not my thing. But, as an artist I can't help but have opinions on how most of them are done, and wonder if I could do it in a way that would be more to my tastes. :P
I think... my biggest complaint about most fursuits is uniformity of colour. If your character's got orange fur for example, you buy some orange fur, slap it on and call it day. It's all the exact same colour. Doing that kind of thing on 3D models is how you get plasticy looking, flat, boring models, and it's almost just as bad on fursuits. They usually look more like mascot costumes than actual animal critters, which... I mean if that's what you're going for, great I guess, but I don't like it.
What they need is some manual painting. I'm not really sure if/how synthetic fur can be stained or dyed... but I've seen synthetic fur blankets with all kinds of colour gradients and stuff so there must be -some- way to do it that won't just rub/wash off.
A lot of fursuits aim for a very goofy/toony vibe as well, which is again fine if that's what you're after, but I think I'd want a slightly more realistic direction. Maybe not entirely realistic, but less cartoon character, more animal critter, know what I mean?
I guess what I'm saying is if I was making a fursuit and could do whatever I want it would probably be more like high-end cosplay than the mascot-suit direction most seem to go.
Which is, I'm aware, a very easy thing to say and another world entirely to do, but hey, we're just talking opinions here, haha.
What they need is some manual painting. I'm not really sure if/how synthetic fur can be stained or dyed... but I've seen synthetic fur blankets with all kinds of colour gradients and stuff so there must be -some- way to do it that won't just rub/wash off.
A lot of fursuits aim for a very goofy/toony vibe as well, which is again fine if that's what you're after, but I think I'd want a slightly more realistic direction. Maybe not entirely realistic, but less cartoon character, more animal critter, know what I mean?
I guess what I'm saying is if I was making a fursuit and could do whatever I want it would probably be more like high-end cosplay than the mascot-suit direction most seem to go.
Which is, I'm aware, a very easy thing to say and another world entirely to do, but hey, we're just talking opinions here, haha.
So from my POV your complaint is one of medium limitation and style preference. My explination of the meta is thus:
- More realistic suit makers will airbrush to get the softer gradients, this can be done doing acrylic paint or more recently, pigment inks, but to my understanding both will fade with use (not an issue if it's your own costume, problematic if you don't have the knowledge, skill or equipment). I know a friend who is a blue snep whose fursuit is basically faded to white now.
- The acrylic paint method is the most accessible, but makes to fur kinda gross feeling, not an issue if it's purely decorative, but is for a lot of people who like the sensory aspect (I just can't tolerate the texture, so it has to be well airbrushed or just on the face).
- Dying fake fur is possible, but is not accessible for most people. The plastic (I forget what it is) can be dyed with synthetic dyes, but is very finnicky (must be at exactly 60'C for hours) which means you need a specialized set up. You can get gradients with this method but it would take fkn forever.
- You can piece together a lot of different furs, clearly this is time consuming and probably exspensive.
Essentially, it's not impossible (clearly, there are some fab makers around that do realistic heads/bodies), but I would say from what I've seen, the majority of fursuiters do just want to be a big toony friendo, and wouldn't want to pay the extra cost to make it closer to what I'm sure a lot of artists would prefer (I speak for myself mostly but).
Thank you for your perspective, I was curious because I'm starting to plan out a personal suit of Zam. The solid fur is also an issue (ish???), to the point I'm considering getting two blue/navy furs so I could potentially make a fake UV cell shading thingy. With my ocelot (icon) she's already complicated enough I'm just going to have to dye the fur the correct orange / yellow and hope for the best really.
Though I'd be hella keen to see some IRL Ru costuming, I'm very curious how your 3D style would translate to a cosplay/ Renfaire style mask.
- More realistic suit makers will airbrush to get the softer gradients, this can be done doing acrylic paint or more recently, pigment inks, but to my understanding both will fade with use (not an issue if it's your own costume, problematic if you don't have the knowledge, skill or equipment). I know a friend who is a blue snep whose fursuit is basically faded to white now.
- The acrylic paint method is the most accessible, but makes to fur kinda gross feeling, not an issue if it's purely decorative, but is for a lot of people who like the sensory aspect (I just can't tolerate the texture, so it has to be well airbrushed or just on the face).
- Dying fake fur is possible, but is not accessible for most people. The plastic (I forget what it is) can be dyed with synthetic dyes, but is very finnicky (must be at exactly 60'C for hours) which means you need a specialized set up. You can get gradients with this method but it would take fkn forever.
- You can piece together a lot of different furs, clearly this is time consuming and probably exspensive.
Essentially, it's not impossible (clearly, there are some fab makers around that do realistic heads/bodies), but I would say from what I've seen, the majority of fursuiters do just want to be a big toony friendo, and wouldn't want to pay the extra cost to make it closer to what I'm sure a lot of artists would prefer (I speak for myself mostly but).
Thank you for your perspective, I was curious because I'm starting to plan out a personal suit of Zam. The solid fur is also an issue (ish???), to the point I'm considering getting two blue/navy furs so I could potentially make a fake UV cell shading thingy. With my ocelot (icon) she's already complicated enough I'm just going to have to dye the fur the correct orange / yellow and hope for the best really.
Though I'd be hella keen to see some IRL Ru costuming, I'm very curious how your 3D style would translate to a cosplay/ Renfaire style mask.
No interest in selling, so fading/other cosmetic maintenance thingies is not really a huge issue. I do wonder if this is an problem of adherence (the stuff just literally falling off) or actual pigment fading though. I've been navigating fading pigments for as long as I've been painting as it's a common problem in watercolours as well, and if you can get actual lightfast pigments they really do hang on a lot better. A lot of the brightest and most saturated colours that people gravitate toward are also the fastest to fade away into nothing. Maybe just need some more robust pigment selection?
If it's just falling off the fur... that's harder to deal with, hah.
It sounds like you'd know better than me- I'm just thinking out loud I guess.
As for being fiddly/difficult/tedious to do... that's kinda my wheelhouse. I kinda thrive on doing difficult technical fiddly work. That only makes me want to try more, haha. Really pinning down some tricky process and getting good results from it, and knowing it's hard enough that most people aren't going to bother so it kinda gives me a leg up tickles me in a way that should... probably require therapy to be addressed properly.
Not saying I'll be -able- to pull it off, but the idea of how satisfying it would be to find and nail down a process if I could is pretty motivating. I might have to go get some small patches of fur and do some experimenting...
If it's just falling off the fur... that's harder to deal with, hah.
It sounds like you'd know better than me- I'm just thinking out loud I guess.
As for being fiddly/difficult/tedious to do... that's kinda my wheelhouse. I kinda thrive on doing difficult technical fiddly work. That only makes me want to try more, haha. Really pinning down some tricky process and getting good results from it, and knowing it's hard enough that most people aren't going to bother so it kinda gives me a leg up tickles me in a way that should... probably require therapy to be addressed properly.
Not saying I'll be -able- to pull it off, but the idea of how satisfying it would be to find and nail down a process if I could is pretty motivating. I might have to go get some small patches of fur and do some experimenting...
Unfortunately in my experience, lineless painting doesn't really save time, it just takes some time out of the inking bucket and puts it in the shading bucket, hah. But, if you wanna give it a try, I didn't follow any specific tutorial, I just looked up a lot of videos on youtube like "krita shading process" or "krita shading workflow" and skimmed through a few. Replace Krita with whatever program you're using, but the process should be very similar regardless.
I appreciate that alot. I should probably try those prompts with linework too then. I have a very clean draft approach and that process is incredibly slow. Very clean alot of the time, but unnecessarily so for what im trying to accomplish. I appreciate the lead! Thank you <3
I love the lineless style you've gone for with Gale here, it reminds me of the soft painterly drawings Disney used to use, e.g. Sleeping Beauty -- the expression is so alluring and makes him look really beautiful :)
I was wondering if you have ever been commissioned to produce art for pitch decks at all, e.g. animated films and/or TV shows?
I was wondering if you have ever been commissioned to produce art for pitch decks at all, e.g. animated films and/or TV shows?
Haha, well thank you for the kind words! But no, not really- the vast vast vast majority of my work is NSFW so not a lot of opportunity to be found by normies for stuff like that, and many of them might not want someone like me associated with their project anyway. :P
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